As is well known to those skilled in the art, with the development of the communication environment and the realization of high-performance personal terminals, user demands for content sharing and service interconnection between various devices anytime and anywhere have increased. Technology for searching for and sharing services and contents between respective devices by configuring virtual space which provides seamless connection between personal terminals is required.
Generally, P2P technology is used to share content, and is provided as technology for efficiently utilizing a distributed network environment depending on the computation and bandwidth performance of machines participating in the configuration of a network, rather than concentrating a content sharing function on a small number of servers. This technology enables a peer device participating in a communication network to communicate with other peer device and to share resources for example, storage, content, computing resources, and the like with the other peer device without using a server. In this case, since the peer device can function as both a server and a client, it can directly share its resources with another peer device.
Techniques for configuring such a P2P network are classified into pure P2P, hybrid P2P, super peer-based P2P, and the like. However, pure P2P in which the concept of P2P is implemented without change is disadvantageous in that important functions such as the provision of search information are not concentrated, so that the performance of resource search or the like is deteriorated, and thus the pure P2P does not greatly attract popularity due to performance limitations. Further, hybrid P2P is problematic in that, since important functions such as those of a central server are excessively concentrated on one place to search for peers on a P2P network or data provided by the peers, the hybrid P2P is vulnerable to failure.
Therefore, several peer device having excellent computer performance or excellent network environments are selected from among various nodes and are set as super peer device, and the super peer device are configured to perform the functions of the central server of hybrid P2P in a distributed manner. Such a super peer-based P2P network is characterized in that, when defects occur in one super peer device, another super peer device can perform the function of the defective super peer device. Accordingly, neither the case where a network cannot perform its function as in the case of the hybrid P2P when an important peer device is powered down, nor the case where performance is deteriorated because a server for assisting in searching is not present as in the case of the pure P2P, occurs.
Further, among the communication techniques of equipment used by individuals, PAN communication methods such as Bluetooth, Zigbee, and Ultra-Wideband (UWB) have recently been popularized and have formed the general trend, and markets related thereto have very rapidly increased in size. In particular, users occasionally synchronize data between their computers and personal small-sized digital equipment with each other in a wireless manner by using PAN technology, occasionally use a wireless Bluetooth mouse or perform wireless printing by using PAN technology, and furthermore occasionally interconnect electric home appliances in the home by using PAN communication technology.
In compliance with such user demands, in order for each user to share Bluetooth devices and related services with other users, the development of technology for interconnection between an existing IP-based network and a non-IP-based Bluetooth network is currently required.